NATO hopes to open training centre in Georgia by end of 2015

TBILISI, Jan 30 (Reuters) - NATO said on Friday it hoped to
open a training centre in Georgia by the end of the year,
signalling a strengthening of its relationship with the former
Soviet republic that is likely to antagonise Russia.

Georgia's government has long hoped to join the military
alliance. But Russia, which fought a 2008 war with Georgia over
two Moscow-backed breakaway regions, has said such a move would
threaten its security.

The Kremlin last month accused NATO of turning another
former Soviet state, Ukraine, into a "frontline of
confrontation", amidst the worst standoff between Moscow and the
West since the Cold War.

NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow said the
new training centre would be set up as part of a package of
measures to boost Georgia's defence capabilities agreed at a
summit in September.

"We are hoping that it can be operational by the end of this
year," Vershbow told reporters in the Georgian capital Tbilisi.

NATO has already agreed in principle that Georgia should one
day become a member. But analysts say the process has been
delayed by member countries' reluctance to further provoke
Russia.

Vershbow said Georgia was moving forward on its path towards
membership but declined to set out a timetable.

NATO boosted its military presence in eastern Europe last
year, saying it has evidence that Russia orchestrated and armed
a pro-Russian rebellion in eastern Ukraine that followed
Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and the
overthrow of a Kremlin-backed president in Kiev.

Moscow denies supporting the rebellion.

Georgia, a South Caucasus country crossed by pipelines that
carry Caspian oil and gas from Azerbaijan to Europe, has sent
its troops to support the NATO mission in Afghanistan.
(Writing by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Andrew Heavens)